Customer story
Trail Group chapter two: From software to strategic alignment
Trail Group one year on: Business Change Manager Michael Bundock inherited a five-system estate and a runaway database—and turned rationalising it into a genuine commercial strategy, cutting its job-review queue by more than 30x and co-building a custom access role with its CSM to keep it that way.
reduction in job review queue
First rollout of a new user role
New-longer term contract signed
About the company
Based in Swanley, Kent, Trail Group, a multi-solutions building and maintenance provider, specialises in fire protection, construction, electrical, security systems and planned maintenance services. Over the past 20 years, the business has evolved from an electrical contractor into a fast-growing multi-faceted business delivering projects across multiple sectors in the Southeast and nationwide.
Services
Fire & security
Construction
Electrical
Planned maintenance
Passive fire
Onetrace features
Evidence capture
Approvals
Reporting
Custom roles & permissions
Just over a year ago, Trail Group shared their Onetrace story Scailing smart: how Trail Group added value, going live fast and using Onetrace to win a multi-million-pound, multi-year London contract, by demonstrating the platform live during a tender when the client had actually asked for a competitor's system.
Jon Crosby, Managing Director, Trail Group
“We showed the client what Onetrace could do, and they loved it. They're now looking to use it themselves. That project alone is a multi-million-pound, multi-year programme.”
Jon Crosby
That was the software decision. What happened next was a commercial one.
the challenge
In the last year, Trail Group has kept growing: headcount is up by a third and revenue is tracking ahead of target. Michael Bundock joined as Business Change Manager to make sure the systems, data and people behind that growth could actually keep pace with it: a role that touched everything from the accounts platform to the vehicle fleet.
When Michael joined, Onetrace was already heavily embedded across the business. That turned out to be part of the challenge, not the solution. Fast growth and adoption across different teams—each with their own admin users and ways of working—meant Onetrace had become a database of information rather than a way to drive operational performance. Add in a wider tech landscape of five systems, and Michael's task was clear:
“My role has been to drive operational improvement, standardise processes, and make sure our systems, data and people are working together to support scalable growth.”
Michael Bundock
And he’s achieved his goals, recognised by his recent promotion to Group Strategic Manager.
the solution
Rationalising the tech estate: three lenses
Rather than defaulting to a straight replace-or-keep call on cost or features alone, Michael assessed the whole landscape against three criteria.
Michael Bundock
Financial concerns—cost, licensing terms, contract flexibility—mattered too, but it's the partnership lens Michael comes back to. It's in the small moments, he says, that you find out whether you're using a system or in a partnership with one.
“Am I raising a ticket to somebody randomly in the world who doesn't really understand our business? Or can I actually send Camila an email and say, 'I've got a problem, when are you free?' Knowing you've got somebody who understands the business, and wants to understand it, and isn't just treating you as a number or a ticket—that's really good.”
Michael Bundock
From clean data to clear permissions
To make Onetrace the foundation for continued growth, Michael launched what the team now calls Project Clean Data: an audit of the company's records, and the processes that produced them. What it uncovered was that ways of working had drifted apart across teams, and that approval and rejection queues weren't being actively managed—which was quietly undermining the business's ability to report on its own progress.
“Having a good, clean database that people understand means we can look at our workloads and understand whether we've got enough operatives, whether there's enough training. Fundamentally, it's about ownership: making sure the right people are accountable.”
Michael Bundock
Built around the people using it
The clearest example of that thinking in action is a custom user role Trail Group built jointly with Onetrace.
“There was a gap between the permissions and the actions people actually needed to take. Working with Onetrace—our CSM Camila and Zak, in the Product team—we designed a new role that gave users exactly the level of access they needed, without creating unnecessary admin overhead or risk.”
Michael Bundock
Trail Group was one of the first customers to explore this functionality, and from Onetrace's side, it was a genuine two-way build.
Camila Gomez, CSM, Onetrace
The result has needed remarkably little fixing since. Accountability improved immediately, governance tightened, and support demand barely moved—the handful of queries since launch have all come down to people trying to do things outside their new permissions, not problems with the permissions themselves.
A genuine partnership
Ask Michael what's underpinned the whole project, and the answer isn't a feature, it's a relationship.
“It's been built on openness, honesty and a shared desire to improve. It never felt like a supplier-client relationship. It felt more like two people working towards the same outcome, from different sides of the table.”
Michael Bundock
“We both started at the same time: Michael at Trail Group, me at Onetrace. I was learning a new product, so was he. He was so willing to be open, and it meant we could ask serious questions and explore options without bias. It's been a fantastic partnership.”
Camila Gomez
For Michael, good communication is proactive, transparent and solution-focused: understanding the business challenge behind a request, rather than just responding to the request itself. It's a standard he says Onetrace has consistently met, and one of the reasons the relationship has stayed productive even as both sides have learned the product together.
the impact
From opinion to evidence
With cleaner data and clearer ownership, Michael describes a genuine shift in how decisions get made at Trail Group.
Michael Bundock
And when it comes to client impact, one thing speaks for itself: they're being paid faster now. Coincidence, or Onetrace? "The evidence points towards Onetrace," he says.
Commercial impact
A platform for growth, not a constraint on it
For a business growing headcount by a third and running ahead of revenue target, the case for Onetrace has become explicitly commercial.
“We've improved data quality, standardised processes and increased visibility, and made sure our systems support the business rather than constrain it. We've signed a new contract—we know Onetrace can scale, it's improving with us, it's growing with us. It's doing everything we need it to do."
Michael Bundock
Tasked with oversight of data, systems, and people processes, Michael can be proud of what he’s achieved for Trail Group:
Michael Bundock
Looking ahead
For Trail Group’s new Group Strategic Manager, the focus now is on scaling in a controlled, sustainable way: improving operational efficiency, strengthening reporting, and creating even greater visibility across the business.
And for Onetrace, having Trail Group—and Michael in particular—as super users and willing collaborators helps build features that matter, support businesses in reaching their commercial goals, and create real impact for teams on site and in the office.
book a demo
Made for you
Explore features tailored to your unique needs. Like what you see? We can get you up and running straight away.